William James Fellow Award

Richard M. Shiffrin

Indiana University

Richard M. Shiffrin’s contributions to scientific psychology have
left a lasting mark on the field. Best known for his empirical, theoretical,
and computational work in the modeling of a wide variety of human cognitive
phenomena such as perception, attention, learning, and memory, Shiffrin
has unified diverse findings and phenomena, bringing the field closer
to identifying and understanding important core principles of human cognition.

Over the years, Shiffrin has created and described a number of influential
models of human cognitive function. In the 1960s, with Richard Atkinson,
he formulated an elegant model of short-term and long-term memory and
proposed processes that control the operation of memory. This work continues
to be among the most cited research in all of psychology.

In the 1970s, Shiffrin proposed a theory of attention that divided automatic
from control processes and showed how processes could become automatic
through consistent mapping. In the 1980s, Shiffrin’s work again
focused on memory processes. He created the Search of Associative Memory
(SAM) model, which quantified the nature of retrieval from long-term memory
and characterized recall as a memory search with cycles of sampling and
recovery.

In the 1990s, Shiffrin further refined his theory of memory using Bayesian
principles of adaptive and optimal decision making under constraints,
providing the foundation for a unified theory of the development of memory.

Richard M. Shiffrin’s innovative and comprehensive empirical and
theoretical works have influenced nearly all areas of scientific psychology.
His formal models of human cognition have stood the test of time and will
undoubtedly influence generations of scientists in the future. He truly
represents what is best about science, psychology, and academia in its
entirety.